TCU football is trying to pull off an ambitious balancing act. It will take a lot of skill and care at the game’s most critical position.
The Horned Frogs are going to see if they can win with one style and level of experience at quarterback while training another. Or two. Or three.
How long the attempt goes and its results will continue to shape the direction of TCU and what it gets out of its signal-callers. An influx of talent flooded the school in the past 30 months, elevating the profile of the Frogs in the all-important QB recruiting scene.
Since February 2017, four-star recruits Shawn Robinson, Justin Rogers, Max Duggan and Matthew Baldwin have come to Fort Worth to ply their trade as passers. To get them, the Frogs beat out schools like USC, Michigan and LSU. Out of Ohio State came Baldwin, a product of the quarterback factory at Austin Lake Travis.
Out of the Ivy League came Mike Collins, who opted to transfer in and gain the benefits of the Big 12 and tutelage of Sonny Cumbie.
The sheer numbers helped the Frogs absorb the departure of Robinson via the portal and the waiting game with Rogers, Collins and Baldwin as they recover from injuries.
TCU is still capable of putting a graduate transfer, Alex Delton, and the four-star Duggan on the field.
In their newfound quarterback era, the Frogs are choosing, so far, to go with both.
Coach Gary Patterson made it sound Tuesday at his weekly press conference that Delton and Duggan would both play Saturday at Purdue, in the same order as in the season opener two weeks ago against Arkansas-Pine Bluff — Delton first.
“Yeah, who’s hot,” Patterson said. “I think we’ll start out the same way, and then we’ll have series. They both played — to be honest with you — they both played well, and they both have strengths.”
For Delton, it’s his legs. Certainly, he can throw. But the legs are what carried him to a bowl offensive MVP award at Kansas State, and the offense he can generate with them makes up the top line on his scouting report.
Duggan can run, too — quite fast, in fact. But his arm is superior, and his youth is quickly being offset by the pace at which he is absorbing the offense and picking up the TCU way.
Patterson loves Delton’s experience and poise. But no one who watches Duggan practice and play can deny his rapid growth.
Does Duggan catch Delton in Patterson’s and Cumbie’s minds at some point? Does the graduate senior give the Frogs the best chance to win this year, no matter what?
How do the Frogs simultaneously coach up Delton’s and Duggan’s disparate strengths?
How much better are they now than two weeks ago when, together, they managed all of 284 yards passing against an FCS team?
“I don’t know,” Patterson said. “I wouldn’t tell the opponent . . . I don’t think there was any part of our team, period, that we didn’t feel like that we had to get better at some things.”
With Duggan, the Frogs have a chance to build a national case about how they develop quarterbacks. If they show they attracted an Iowa high school star out of Big Ten country and won with him against Lone Star State-bred QBs in the Big 12, it will resonate with other signal-callers around the country.
Same with Rogers. Patterson and his staff demonstrated a compassionate, first-class approach in never letting Rogers doubt that he remained important to them following the devastating knee injury he suffered as a TCU commit. Rogers was hurt during the first half of the first game of his high school senior season. The Frogs’ primary aim now is to return the Bossier City, La., native to health and let him use his incredible skill to compete for a job.
Delton himself is already a product of TCU’s quarterback reputation, calling the school on his own in hopes of playing his final year in Fort Worth.
Meanwhile, Collins and the freshly eligible Baldwin continue getting closer to being competition ready.
At any time, the great TCU multi-arm race from the spring and summer could be back on.
“You’re only in your second week,” Patterson said. “That’s one thing about an off week — everybody gets a chance to improve and get reps and be able to do things. So everybody had a chance to get a lot of work.”
And to continue making their way in the emerging TCU quarterback scene.
